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2014-05-11 - On a Dark and Stormy Mother's Day
It's raining in Bludhaven again. The rain in this city reminds Charlie a lot of the rain in Hub City. The steam rising from the streets and alleys giving visualization to the ever present stench permeating this small section of the world. Yeah; This place reminds him of Hub City but... better. There's just something about this place... maybe it's the Hope some folks have for it. It's not written off like his hometown. Charlie is at the edge of the rooftop of a three-story commercial building along one of the main urban centers. Charlie isn't here as himself or his intrepid reporter guise. He's donned the pseudoderm mask of the Question. What a way to spend Mother's Day. Had Charlie a mother, she'd be disappointed in his life choices. He kneels at the edge of the rooftop and just watches the avenue below him. There's a group of people gathered around an old, beat up Edsel. The showers beat down on him, soaking his fedora and trenchcoat. The Faceless Man doesn't give an indication that he cares... though who could tell from his featureless visage? So Asia decided to go to the city but decided to ride on the back of a semi truck and seewhere it lands her. Look its Bludhaven and its raining. Daisy doesnt like the idea but she cant talk so there you have it. The girl and robot explore the city, lurking in the shadows, not sure where they are at the moment. Cassandra Cain still has the eggs and potatoes, because food. She seems to carry them without much trouble, though the rain is slowly soaking through the egg carton. The rain also has her hair in her eyes, black bangs desperately in need of a haircut stinging her eyes, as she wipes the hair from her brow with the egg carton. On the streets below the Question, Cassandra's eyes flicker around animatedly as she looks at every person she approaches. A car comes out of an alleyway slightly quickly in the rain, possibly going to strike a dog that's trailing after a woman with an umbrella. The event is happening fairly near to where Cassandra is walking, as she pulls an egg out of the carton and sucks the insides out through a hole punched by her fingernail. The slightest tilt of The Question's head causes a cascade of fallen rainwater from the brim of his hat. This slight act as well as his breathing seperating Q from the non-existant gargoyles that could have been built onto the facade of this three-story. It wouldn't be apparent by looking at him, his eyes are glued on what's happening around the Edsel. Other than the oddity of seeing a real, live Edsel in the twenty-first century... the present of the men shooting the breeze in the rain must be what's curious about these people. Q, eventually, stands from his statuesque posture. A way is found to get down to ground level and soon, Q is making strides towards the group. Not only are words being exchanged between the people around the old model Ford, but unknown objects. A drop is being made. Oh nos the doggie! Asia leaps into action flipping in the air and grabbing the pup before he became splattered. "Whoa boy, ah gotcha." she says patting him. "I got you." the dog looks to Asia and licks her, she is a stick afterall. The owner of the dog, surprised by the sudden yank on the leash, tries to reclaim the dog by scrambling for the handle of the leash, never once hanging up her celphone where she's trying to talk to her sister about breeding poodles. The dog isn't a poodle. It's a dachshund. Cassandra watches the dive and the saved dog, tossing her empty eggshell into the street where it shatters and looks the new arrival over with narrowed eyes. Down the alley however, now that the car has gone by, Cassandra notes something going on that gets her attention as well. Two for one, huh. She stands by Asia, just out of arm's reach, and sucks on another egg as the rain cascades down over her soaked hoodie. The disturbance involving the dog, vehicle and acrobatics garners the attention of the men gathered around the Edsel. Their attentions are drawn to the mild excitement, overhearing it over their own conversation and the pitter patter of the rain. One of the men around the Edsel's attention doesn't make it to the dog excitement. Eyes fall upon The Question's approach to their drop. Eyes widen as recognition of the featureless man reaches his brain. A curse, a pull of a rainsoaked sleeve and a gesture to Q precedes- "Ah, man. It's the No-Face Guy! He's tracked us here!" One of the men dives into the Edsel, others start to run away from the car and two remain outside of the car, fumbling for previously hidden hand cannons attached to their hips. The exciteable reaction to Q's approach hastens said approach. Ignoring those beating feet away from the Edsel, The Question quickens his pace towards the men fumbling for their sidearms. Asia waves bye to the lady. "Bye lady, nice puppy." Asia compliments has she stands up wiping water, she looks up to the egg sucking Cass. "My dress is totally soaked." she giggles, her attention goes to the commotion. "What's that?" Cassandra Cain lifts her chin to motion towards the shouting, her face not exactly showing much in the way of excitement. She does however start to smile a bit as she does a follow-me motion with her shoulder and starts walking down the alley, her eyes finally moving away from Asia and to the situation in progress. She does, however, pull some more eggs out of the carton with her left hand and haul back, then throws two of them down the alleyway towards the faces of two of the gun-toters. She doesn't actually SAY anything in response to Asia's comments. Despite what one would expect, there are other people out and about on this street. The faceless vigilante wanted to shadow these individuals but a twist of luck caused him to be noticed due to boneheaded direct approach to the group. Usually the cloak of rain is enough of an obscurity to allow such an approach; Not this time. Bludhaven provides the people in its limits similar luck to those in Hub City, apparently. The Edsel starts with the rumbling, quiver and belch of black exhaust out the tailpipe. The hand cannons are ripped from their temporary residences and coerced to direct their offending ends towards the approaching Vigilante. Muscles begin to flex and fingers start quivering against the tension of the trigger. Muzzles lose their mark and bullets collide with the facade of a nearby building as aim is thrown off due to the unlikely additional of thrown eggs to this tense encounter. The men had moments to get that shot off to stop Q, and the eggs relieved them of those moments. The Question is now on top of them. Hands and rain-sogged shoes flail in a flurry of disarming actions that ensure these two men won't get an immediate second chance to strike The Question down. Asia grins and follows Cassandra to where the trouble is..far too trusting the green little girl is...fearless. The dark-haired asian girl begins to run down the alley. Feet moving at a sprint, her breathing speed changes very little as she moves while still holding the bags of potatoes under her right arm. A wider smile on her face now, almost evil in its appearance, as Cassandra leaps onto the top of a trash can, does a backflip with one foot on the brick wall of the alley, and deposits her groceries on a nearby fire escape before landing on the ground again without losing stride. Giving Asia a smile of approval, Cassandra turns her attention fully to the vehicle as her feet tap out a staccato on the concrete and she ends her sprint sliding down onto her knees, her back down on the ground, ending up sliding entirely underneath the car and vanishing from immediate sight there. The clattering of the mook's hand cannons on the ground joins the cacaphony of noise that is the rain splatter and rumbling Edsel. The two now-disarmed individuals grip their arms as sudden pain from the faceless man's strikes streak up their arms. The Question takes a moment to allow those disarmed individuals to recover from the sudden loss of their offensive might. As the men recover, The Question raises his hands up in front of him and adjusts the wrists of his gloves. He says to them as they look up from their own pain to regard Q, "It's Mother's day. Remember Mom; You should use your words when a man has questions." The two of them lunge languidly at the Faceless Man who answers their lunge with a sweeping of his leg to deprive the lungers with ground to lunge from. Asia follows Cassandra the watch a thug take flight, Asia grins thats her target, her body armor covers her and her claws protrude and she leaps ib the air, bouncing forward on the card and lands on the crook trying to get away. He squirms around trying to punch her, Asia retaliates with a slash! The wounded felon bucks her off in pain, trying to get away once more! The roar of the Edsel's engine is highlighted by the highbeams of the headlamps that spotlight the Question in their crosshairs, though there are also two downed and falling thugs in front of the grill of the vehicle that reminds everyone of its presence. Asia's leap takes her right over the vehicle and to the other side, but the Question is not so lucky. The vehicle spits a plume of smoke as it leaps forward, the driver panicked and willing to drive over his problems and end the day out of jail. Sweat is on his dark forehead as he tries to kill off the superhero with his bumper, having seen little of the ladies also in the alleyway and having lost track of both of them regardless. Cassandra appears from behind the vehicle, latching onto the roof with her left hand as she leans forward and ends the driver's consciousness with a single reach of her fist into the cab, tagging him on the chin with a knuckle and grabs at the steering wheel quickly to send the old and battered vehicle to slam into the wall right behind the Question's form. The vehicle manages to miss the two thugs that had fallen to the ground and only barely to miss him! The Question twists at the waist to look behind him at the movement of headlamp beams. Shadows of the Faceless Vigilante and the two half-broken mooks are temporarily plastored to the facade of the nearest building. The shadows of these men cast a humorous projection; The men with swept feet look up and then curl up into a fetal position with hands grasping the backs of their heads. Q raises a hand to hold onto his hat as the old car heads for them. The car suddenly jerks to the side, slams into the nearby building and Q is thankful he had his hand on his hat; The wake of the car was enough that it could have gently nudges the hat slightly backwards on his crown. With the mooks that Q had been 'fighting' in compromised positions, he steps up to them and strikes them in both in a manner equally precise between them. The effort is meant to chaperone their visit to dream land. The man that Asia is going after, during his hectic retreat, seems to remember that he is also armed. As he runs from her, he's desperately pawing at his hip, looking for where he shoved the barrel of his own peashooter. Asia jumps up and rushes, after the Pea shooting crimnial who finds the weapon and fires, hitting the little girl! She keeps running, leaping into the air taking more shots as she swipes the weapon fromn his hand and kicking him, causing him to fall into the wall. She leaps on him holding her claws to him. "You arent very nice." Cassandra Cain for her part stands on top of the car, hands turned into fists. She surveys the scene from her vantage point, face sporting a frown that matches the battle-ready focus in her form. She watches as the Question uses his fists, she watches as Asia gets shot and judges how the girl reacts, and she checks to see if her groceries are still where they are supposed to be. Well, perhaps not entirely in the zone after all. However, she doesn't move to interrupt Asia's conversation with the mook even though he may think he's about to die. Instead she hops down to the ground and wanders over to the Question's non-conscious lugs and taps one of them with her toe, unconcerned. The man who frantically fired at Asia becomes acquainted and intimate with the wall of the alleyway that previously had a flanking relationship with him. The slam stunned him slightly but that's not what causes him to freeze and stop moving. The threat of claws is a good motivator to nod along in agreement with Asia's statement. The Question shoves his rain-soaked gloves into his equally saturated pockets. Q doesn't need a drying rack or clothesline... he needs a pizza oven to take care of the droplets of water that have staked a claim to his garments. The Faceless Man looks from the unconscious mooks, the the car that is suddenly in an unorthodoxed parking position and then to Cassandra and her probing toe. The Question says with his head downcast and water running off the brim of his hat, "Not getting information out of these fellows today." Cassandra Cain leans down to check the gentleman on the ground that she was prodding with her toe. She sticks her fingers into his pockets; a classic detective technique, to actually search the perpetrator, and pulls out a very small bag of white powder from an inner pocket. Which she looks at then tosses onto the ground dismissively with a flick of her index and middle finger. A shrug of her shoulders and she rises to her feet, saying, "No," in an odd, raspy voice that sounds vaguely unused. She looks up at the Question with her clear brown eyes as the two of them wait for Asia to finish with her toy. "Nice..." she suggests as her eyes pass over his very interesting face. Asia looks over to the others. "Police?" she asks curiously while waitiing. She has no cuffs or anything and so this part of ciminal takedown she dosent knoww. The Question observes her doing what he may have done were this not the third or seventh time encountering this group of mooks. He turns his head slightly to observe the baggy of questionable contents. In response to her wordy monologue, Q manages, "Incorrect. There's nothing nice here." From the rainsoaked pocket, Q slides a clamshell cell phone out. The phone's protection from the rain comes from what appears to be some synthetic film that has covered all of its sensative spots. The device is flipped open, a couple of buttons are struck and it is raised to his ear. Q raises a gloved finger up to Asia in the classic 'One Second' gesture, "Hey Tot-" he's talking to whomever answered the other end of the connection, "-Said hello to those fellows who visited Santa Prisca." A pause, "Bludhaven. Yeah, it doesn't smell as bad as our shining city in summer, but it's musky." another pause as the other end continues speaking, "Thanks, Prof. Call soon. Oh. Happy Mother's Day?" The clamshell is closed and slid back into the pocket with enough water in it to double as a lap-lane. Cassandra Cain is at the end of the conversation hanging by one hand from the fire escape, reaching up to get ahold of her groceries. She can be seen pulling them down and dropping them to her feet, then to the ground without bruising the potatoes, though the egg carton is by now a lost cause and the eggs spilled and broken. A quiet night, she should have gone to the movies, though she looks back to Asia and the Question. Far above, on the street's highest roof but able to see the alleyway below, a figure stands in a chinese shirt and silk. And then it's gone, a lightning strike illuminating the rain-slicked rooftop where nobody could possibly hide. Happy Mother's day indeed. And Cassandra picks up her potatoes, inspecting her new compatriots. "Puppy," the quiet girl suggests in Asia's direction. She'd seen, and from her expression approved. Asia figures it easy to bonk him. >BONK< and the criminal goes out cold. She stands and runs to Cass. "Hi I;m Asia, Asia Greenleaf!" The Question regards Asia for a few moments, glances to Cass and then his eyes cut and drop their gaze to the baggy of powder that is losing its properties as a powder but quickly gaining the properties of paste thanks to the atmospheric conditions blessing Bludhaven today. These looks allow Q the excuse of not seeing the silhouette of the woman on the rooftops. As he continues to look at the paste he says, "Well, I appreciate you managing to deflect that beautiful machine into the wall and not into me. You've got a gift." With no further words, the Question raises a hand to the brim of his hat, secures it a little more over his forehead and eyes and starts a stride away from the scene. The Police Department isn't far and this fracas was enough to garner the eventual attention of Bludhaven's Boys and Girls in Blue. Cassandra Cain touches her hand to Asia's head, giving the girl one of her rare innocent smiles. Actually innocent, there's a certain warmth to the girl at the moment as if she had not just been in a near-death situation involving her arm and a runaway Edsel. Listening to the Question as well, she nods to the man before offering Asia a hand to walk her out of the alley toward the street. Her voice seems to be little used, but she does say, "Mother?" as a question to Asia, asking the girl about her own perhaps.